"Alexander Jablokov - Fragments Of A Painted Eggshell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jablokov Alexander)

to cut the connection.

Paula pulled her headset off and threw it across the room. Then, with exaggerated care, she hit a couple
of keys and printed out an invoice on the Hammersly job. At least she'd gotten something done.

She sensed rather than heard the back door closing. Rue always came home silently, trying to seep in, as
if her mother, dim as some senescent household pet, would conclude that she had really been there all
along.

Paula had learned not to say hello to her when she first came in. It took Rue a while to adjust after
coming into her mother's carefully built house, even though she had grown up in it. A little prowling
around, a few minutes' ceremonial examination of the contents of the refrigerator -- anything she took out
she immediately put back in -- and she would be calm enough to deal with.

"Hi, Mom," Rue said when Paula came out of her office. She sat hunched at the ceramic-tile counter, still
wearing her ankle- length black coat, its shoulders wet with spring rain. Her hair, for a wonder, was
combed and fresh, falling past her shoulders in soft dark curls. Until a few days before, it had been
deliberately ratty and feral-smelling, like that of some distraught mad poetess. It drove Paula crazy. For
years she had regarded that hair as a sort of joint possession. Rue had finally dissuaded her.

"Hello." Paula started getting the raw materials for dinner out of the refrigerator. The coat, worn tightly
buttoned in the bright warm light of the kitchen she had worked so hard on, disturbed her. It was of
textured leather, and sucked in close above Rue's hips, then flared out, ending up pleated at the tips of
her boots. How much must such a thing have cost? It was dizzying. Rue was only fourteen.

"You know, Arnie, our sosh prof, is such a whack job." Rue rapped her gloved knuckles on the counter.
Somehow, as Paula cracked eggs, they actually managed to have a discussion of sorts about Arnold
Renborn, Rue's Sociological Sciences teacher. It helped that Paula honestly agreed with her daughter's
assessment that the man was a fool.

Then, a long silence. "Mom, there's something I have to talk about with you."

Paula held tightly onto the egg bowl and set it clumsily on the counter. Without looking at Rue, she took
all the eggshell halves and nested them before throwing them down the disposal.

"What is it, honey?"

"I --" Rue swallowed. This was bad. Usually she just dropped her news on the table, take it or leave it,
and was gone before Paula could react.

"I got a notification from Miriam-Selina Kaman's lawyer yesterday. I checked it with my legal program --
seems okay. I won't actually sign up to anything without consulting our lawyer directly, of course." Rue's
voice was desperately practical. "Miriam-Selina Kaman, her husband Mark Pursang, her cousin Ella
Trumbull, and Trumbull's husband Winston Ortega are forming a family co-op, name as yet
undetermined. There are four other kids and I've been invited to join."

"Oh." Paula felt like the guy in the joke who's had his head cut off but doesn't know it until he tries to
nod. She wasn't going to nod. That was a nice bit of legalistic precision, sticking her father into the list
simply as Mark Pursang, Miriam- Selina Kaman's husband. Fourteen. Rue was fourteen. Had Paula
forgotten that? Had she forgotten that the joint-custody agreement let Rue make a decision when she